The new transparency platform lets you dig in and see quite a few details about exactly who is issuing takedowns and what they're removing from search. It's using data since last July (when Google set up an organized web-form, so the data is consistent). It may be a bit surprising, but at the top of the list? Microsoft, who has apparently taken down over 2.5 million URLs from Google's search results. Most of the the others in the top 10 aren't too surprising. There's NBC Universal at number two. The RIAA at number three (representing all its member companies). BPI at number five. Universal Music at number seven. Sony Music at number eight. Warner Music doesn't clock in until number 12.

There's also data on which sites are most frequently targeted, which (not surprisingly) lists out a bunch of torrent search sites and file lockers and such. Don't be surprised to see some try to claim that this is an accurate list of "rogue sites" that Google should block entirely. However, if you look carefully at the data, Google also highlights the percentage of pages on those sites for which they've received takedowns, and the vast majority of them are well below 1%. In other words, no one has complained about well over 99% of the pages on these sites. It seems pretty drastic to suggest that these sites are obviously nothing but evil, when so many of their pages don't seem to receive any complaints at all.

Perhaps more important, however, is that Google is also revealing the incredible deluge of takedown requests it receives in search, each of which it tries to check to make sure they're legitimate. As it stands now, Google is processing over 250,000 such requests per week -- which is more than they got in the entire year of 2009. For all of 2011, Google receive 3.3 million copyright takedowns for search... and here we are in just May of 2012, and they're already processing over 1.2 million per month. And while we've heard reports from the usual Google haters that Google is slow to respond to takedowns, it says that its average turnaround time last week was 11 hours. Think about that for a second. It's reviewing each one of these takedowns, getting 250,000 per week... and can still process them in less than 12 hours. That's pretty impressive.

It's also interesting to hear that these reviews catch some pretty flagrant bogus takedown requests:

At the same time, we try to catch erroneous or abusive removal requests. For example, we recently rejected two requests from an organization representing a major entertainment company, asking us to remove a search result that linked to a major newspaper’s review of a TV show. The requests mistakenly claimed copyright violations of the show, even though there was no infringing content. We’ve also seen baseless copyright removal requests being used for anticompetitive purposes, or to remove content unfavorable to a particular person or company from our search results.

It's good to see Google catch these, as plenty of other sites would automatically take such content down, just to avoid any question of liability. Of course, it doesn't catch them all. Some get through -- as we ourselves discovered a few months ago. That led us to wonder if this tool could drill down and find the details about takedowns targeting Techdirt, but unfortunately at the moment there doesn't seem to be any way to actually search the list. Hopefully that will change soon. Update: The search function is not currently advertised anywhere, but you can access it by using a URL: http://www.google.com/transparencyreport/removals/copyright/domains/yourdomain.com/

Of course, this is also a good reminder -- as they note in the Google blog post -- that if you run a website, you should absolutely sign up to use Google's Webmaster tools, which will quickly inform you when one of your URLs are targeted by such a takedown, allowing you to easily file a counternotice.

Either way, this is really fascinating data and an interesting platform, shedding some significant light on just how often copyright holders are trying to take links out of Google, who's doing it and who they're targeting.

Re: Re:

Well for starters there's the Google Fellows program at EFF and all of the money they pump in there. And then you have have Public Knowledge who has Google way up their ass. That's just scratching the surface. Good luck with your unicorns.

Re: Re: Re: Microsoft

You know, I actually saw that commercial the other day on TV. I was taking apart a laptop on the floor of my room (I have a desk but for some reason I feel much more comfortable working on the floor) while intoxicated and I had the TV on just for noise. Well I hear what's being said and I was like, "Wtf am I watching?" I turn around and just watch for a few moments and then just sat there stunned that this was being aired on TV. It was without a doubt the strangest yet stupidest commercial I've EVER seen on television. As a techie, I knew what was being stated or meant to be stated, but if I'd been completely clueless about computers and what have you I'd have been totally confused about the point of the commercial. (And suffice it to say, in my inebriated state, I was pretty confounded as to the point of it. People will crawl out of my technology. That's what I took from that.)

My disgust with MS grows almost daily

I have been a supporter of MS for a long time. Not a fanboi, but a supporter. The more I see of what they are doing lately to try to stop Android because they can't get their act together and now seeing that they are the #1 take down notice issuer (that is tough to say), I am swearing them off. Well as much as I can anyway. It is hard to get away from MS but I will do it where possible. I doubt seriously that I will ever own a Windows phone or tablet. I had thought they could rule that market if they get a compelling OS out that can run a portable version of Office but now I don't care. They won't get my money.

Re: My disgust with MS grows almost daily

Re: My disgust with MS grows almost daily

Good for you! If you need reinforcement, just look at Microsoft's history. Believe it or not, they're arguably better behaved now than they have been since the very beginning.

It is hard to get away from MS but I will do it where possible

I think you will find, with one exception, that it's actually very easy to get away from Microsoft. For the most part, the alternatives are even technically superior!

The one exception is when it comes to gaming, and even that is easier than ever before and getting easier all the time.

But, really, if you're into the sorts of games that require Windows, then you're probably supporting companies that don't behave better than Microsoft anyway. So long as you're OK making that concession, you may as well just keep a Windows partition to play your games on and go non-windows for everything else.

Re: Re: My disgust with MS grows almost daily

The one exception is when it comes to gaming, and even that is easier than ever before and getting easier all the time.

No problem, just get an XB... oh wait, get a PS... dang, Sony's just as bad. I don't think you can really do much hardcore gaming without supporting MS or Sony. I'm not an expert, but I haven't heard of a lot of serious-gamer type games for Nintendo, Mac, iOS, or Android. You kind of have to choose if you're going to just play more casual (still fun but different) games, or embrace the dark side.

Re: Re: Re: My disgust with MS grows almost daily

I don't think you can really do much hardcore gaming without supporting MS or Sony. I'm not an expert,...

Based on personal experience, I have been able to get most any game I wanted to run under Linux using Wine, Dosbox or one of the console simulators. The only ones I couldn't get to work were because I don't have a super-duper graphics card on my laptop and they didn't run under Windows either.

(Like a dumbass I bought The Witcher Enhanced Edition without reading the box and there it sits all pretty on that shelf mocking me daily)

Re: Re: Re: Re: My disgust with MS grows almost daily

a lot of games apparently need a LOT of fluffing around and actually knowing what you're doing before they'll run on linux though.

the list of 'install under wine and go' type games is... very limited.

you can Do it, it's just a major hassle if your attitude is less 'linux is awesome and i am awesome at doing awesome things on it and thus learn and understand this for fun' and more 'microsoft is made of suck and i just want to get stuff Done without using it's stuff.'

also, Wine and multiplayer often don't play well together. again, probably ways around this if you're technically inclined, but a major pain if not.

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: My disgust with MS grows almost daily

Yes to all of that.

Sometimes I forget that I am an "old school" gamer. Messing with all the memory settings and multiple boot systems and whatnot for DOS games was the norm. Switching to Linux was just another learning experience for me. Actually, the ability to play most all of my old games I had sitting around on one system (along with my growing dislike of Microsoft too) is why I switched.

Linux is getting more user friendly all the time for gaming. PlayOnLinux automates a lot of the Wine stuff for newbies. I don't use it personally, but it looks promising.

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: My disgust with MS grows almost daily

the problem with running games under wine is that this leads to the syndrome of developers being "lazy"...hey...it runs great under wine..o btw..no support for you!

with native linux binaries, there's no futzing about to make it run, no hoops to jump through when $THAT_NEXT BIG_EXPANSION_PACK comes out and breaks the currently running install, no proprietary UDF-MS filesystem on the install DVD, no mysterious crashes that leave the wine process hung and in an unstable state, no performance hit due to system calls being run through the wrapper, ......

my money's just as good as Joe Wintendo's money. a shame game companies don't want it....

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: My disgust with MS grows almost daily

my money's just as good as Joe Wintendo's money. a shame game companies don't want it....

Problem is, they know there are a lot of Joe Wintendos and even more Mike Waystations, John Wexboxes, and Steve Weeceegamers. They believe, correctly or incorrectly, that there are very few Linux gamers. This leads to a vicious cycle where there really are few Linux gamers because there aren't many good games for Linux, so studios don't develop for Linux because there's no market, etc.

I suspect it will take quite a long time of slowly building up an independent Linux game market before the major producers take notice. I mean even Mac doesn't have a great game market and I think that's a lot more popular than Linux, isn't it?

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: My disgust with MS grows almost daily

"This leads to a vicious cycle"

It does, and drivers/games have always been the most problematic areas. I personally think that having products that allow games to run relatively easily on Linux will help, but I understand the problems with only having products native to Windows then played without "notifying" the developer.

One area that looks positive is the indie gaming scene - most of the Humble Bundle games have been available on Linux, for example, and Linux users tend to pay more on average. Perhaps that will help change the perception of the market.

"I mean even Mac doesn't have a great game market and I think that's a lot more popular than Linux, isn't it?"

The marketplace is growing, thanks mainly to Steam and Aspyr, as well as the generally increasing popularity of Apple products over the last few years. Hopefully that will continue. Hopefully similar companies will support Linux in the same way in the near future.

Re: Re: My disgust with MS grows almost daily

I like how you pitch the alternatives without pointing out how they are no better than MS in crackdowns, and most of time much worse.

If the alternatives seems have their own enforcement force that is nicknamed gestapo, able to sue many websites to take down stuff they don't like, and has connections with local police force who helped their gestapo enter and search people's house without warrant for "lost property". Really, are they any better to switch to if your reason to switch is based on company ethics?

Reality check of the day: pretty much all multinational big corps are evil so you really have no way out. If you *religiously* believe one company is ethically better than others, time to reevaluate your moral compass.

Re: Re: Re: My disgust with MS grows almost daily

I like how you pitch the alternatives without pointing out how they are no better than MS in crackdowns, and most of time much worse.

GWiz beat me to it, but... I didn't specify a particular alternative, but I thought it was obvious I was was talking about FOSS, which is 100% better than MS on these points.

pretty much all multinational big corps are evil so you really have no way out.

Yes, all the multinationals are obnoxious, but that doesn't mean there's no way out. just don't use any of their products.

I find it interesting that you think the only viable alternatives are commercial products. In most cases, the FOSS alternatives are superior to the commercial offerings, and you don't have to support bad behavior.

Re: My disgust with MS grows almost daily

I'm on other side of the spectrum: I've spent the last 30+ years in the Unix/Linux world.

You should try it. The operating systems are robust and some of the applications are amazing. I have little use for an office suite, but LibreOffice is excellent. The Gimp does most of the Photoshop-ish things that most people care about. Inkscape and Dia are pretty darn good. Then there's Wireshark, Bluefish, Miro, Zenoss, Subversion, Xapian, VLC, Scribus, and hundreds more. The problem these days isn't finding an application that does what you want: the problem is deciding which one to use, as in some areas there are many.

And the best part is: you can boot into these (operating systems and application environments) from CD/DVD/USB, try them out, and if you don't like them? Try another one.

Re: Re: My disgust with MS grows almost daily

The operating systems are robust and some of the applications are amazing.

You know what my problem with Linux is? Not the OS, not the shell, not the programs, it's the support. When I've had trouble figuring something out, I can probably count on one hand (maybe two) the number of times I've found a solution using the GUI.

I'm a programmer and comfortable with a command prompt, but it bothers me to have this great graphical interface that's almost useless because unless you can figure everything out on your own, you have to go back to the bash shell. Until people answering Linux questions start answering them in terms of the GUI rather than command line, Linux is going nowhere in terms of widespread adoption.

Re: Re: Re: My disgust with MS grows almost daily

No kidding! I'm not allergic to command prompts either, but I have to first dump 2 to 20 pages of parameter configurations to a text file, then open said file to suss out the settings I need. Give me a proper configuration panel with dropdowns, checkboxes, etc and I can get the settings I need in about 10 seconds. The Linux gearheads don't care because they apparently have a superhuman Rainman ability to remember most of the parameters for every program! What chance do we mere mortals have?

Re: Re: Re: Re: My disgust with MS grows almost daily

The Linux gearheads don't care because they apparently have a superhuman Rainman ability to remember most of the parameters for every program! What chance do we mere mortals have?

Right, the problem is the people who provide the community-based support (because if there's reasonable paid support for personal Linux users I haven't heard of it) are the same ones who think about things primarily in terms of the command line. And probably many of them couldn't care less how many people adopt Linux. I'll bet many would even prefer the masses stay away. And they do.

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: My disgust with MS grows almost daily

The basic problem is that most Linux users who are proficient enough to provide comprehensive support often prefer the command line. They may have come from a server background, or started using Linux well before the GUIs were mature enough not to need to fix things in the command line. What you're essentially asking is that people who are able and willing to provide support free of charge during their spare time forget most of what they know so they can navigate a newcomer through their first Ubuntu install's GUI rather than provide a solution which they know will work in seconds.

This isn't something unique to Linux, by the way. I've seen numerous things on OSX that would need a command prompt fix, and there's no end of Windows solutions that involve hacking the registry and other things that would be daunting to a newcomer.

This is essentially the problem with demanding things for free. As an old saying goes - you can have it cheaply, functional or quickly - pick two. Navigating clueless users through relatively simply tasks can be frustrating, and it's something that most of us who started their careers as helpdesk monkeys will avoid if there's not a much needed hourly wage attached.

It's been a while since I've looked, but I think that you get first party support included if you buy a retail boxed version of a major distro, and I don't believe most major distros will have problems supporting home users for most tasks if they buy a support contract later. I suppose it depends on what you're trying to do, etc, but I believe it's possible.

Maybe you've just hit upon a niche market? GUI-only solutions for common Linux problems? Hmmm...

By the way, from what I can see, the "gobbledygook" you pasted above seems to return the contents of a file then uses those contents in another program, which is run as a different user. It's a quick and easy command in the command prompt (you'd just copy and paste it without having to understand it), but imagine how many clicks, copying and pasting into different windows a GUI would probably need. Whoever provided that solution chose to give a single command rather than spend 2 pages guiding the user through every button. Whether you like it or not, that's the mindset for volunteers providing solutions free of charge...

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: My disgust with MS grows almost daily

The basic problem is that most Linux users who are proficient enough to provide comprehensive support often prefer the command line.

Yeah, I think that's about what I said. ;-)

What you're essentially asking is that people who are able and willing to provide support free of charge during their spare time forget most of what they know so they can navigate a newcomer through their first Ubuntu install's GUI rather than provide a solution which they know will work in seconds.

Exactly. And this situation is not a problem, per se. It just limits the reach of Linux. Like I said, some people care and others don't. I'm frustrated because I'd like to see Linux become a powerful competitor to Windows.

there's no end of Windows solutions that involve hacking the registry and other things that would be daunting to a newcomer.

Sure, but if there's a way to do it in the GUI, you can find that answer. That's not always the case with Linux.

I think that you get first party support included if you buy a retail boxed version of a major distro, and I don't believe most major distros will have problems supporting home users for most tasks if they buy a support contract later.

That's good. I hope that becomes more widely known. I may look into it myself.

By the way, from what I can see, the "gobbledygook" you pasted above seems to return the contents of a file then uses those contents in another program, which is run as a different user.

Yes, I know it does that (I operated a Linux machine strictly command line for about 3 years), but it's complete nonsense to almost everyone.

imagine how many clicks, copying and pasting into different windows a GUI would probably need.

That's another problem. Some GUIs don't have all the functionality programmed into them, or it's poorly done, because the developers figure you can always just use the command line. I would love to see them take an attitude of if you're going to make a GUI at all, make sure it does every task the program is capable of. Ideally in an intuitive manner, but that might be asking too much. :-)

Re: Re: Re: Re: My disgust with MS grows almost daily

"I'm not allergic to command prompts either, but I have to first dump 2 to 20 pages of parameter configurations to a text file, then open said file to suss out the settings I need."

Out of curiosity, where are you seeing this? Most modern distros don't require any such thing for anything other than advanced configuration.

"The Linux gearheads don't care because they apparently have a superhuman Rainman ability to remember most of the parameters for every program!"

Apparently being the operative word. Virtually every command line program has some documentation installed, and you can usually see a listing of the available parameters by typing --help after the command. Nobody remembers everything, but an experienced user will be able to remind themselves or discover required parameters quickly.

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: My disgust with MS grows almost daily

Actually, I rarely find myself needing to use the command line at all in Debian these days. Pretty much only for a couple programs I use that don't have a GUI or when compiling something from the source.

Anytime I haven't been able to find documentation on something, a well worded Google search usually finds something on a user forum pretty quickly.

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: My disgust with MS grows almost daily

At the risk of beating a dead horse with this tangent, could you perhaps give an example of a problem you've recently had? I'd be interested to see if there is actually another way or if you are literally having problems that have no easy GUI fix (for which an easy solution exists in other OSes)...

Hmmm, so by the look of things you're searching for the text of an error message with that? I did find that by rewording the search I got some GUI-based solutions, but then they use the command line if these did not work. In other words the command prompt is the next step, just as hacking the registry might be a next step for Windows problems not fixed through other means - and the registry is no less daunting for the average user than "copy and paste this then copy and paste the results here".

Anyway, that might be exactly the kind of problem where you really do still need to use the command line. Drivers are still an issue with Linux, and will continue to be so long as so many manufacturers either can't or won't create their own Linux drivers and/or don't release the required information for the community to develop their own. Anyone who's spent time talking users through a device manager problem where Windows Update doesn't instantly find the required driver will know that a GUI solution isn't necessarily easier, either.

But, this is also the kind of problem that most people won't come across once the OS is installed and running. On a day-to-day basis, most people will not need to use the command line at all. Sure, some will, but sometimes people need to drop to the command line in OSX or even recovery mode in Windows if the problem is severe enough.

I understand your point here with this particular issue, but is it really something that will affect the majority of problems, or only people with problems caused by incompatible equipment and the like?

I understand your point here with this particular issue, but is it really something that will affect the majority of problems, or only people with problems caused by incompatible equipment and the like?

Your point is good, but what I wonder is how often it has to be an issue before the average user is frustrated with it? OTOH maybe I'm exaggerating and the average user is OK with pasting stuff they don't understand into a program they don't know how to use, as long as it solves the problem.

Re: Re: My disgust with MS grows almost daily

Putting my parents on Ubuntu was seriously one of the best things I've ever done. The only time I even get a call about the computers now is generally something wrong with the internet connection coming into the house, not the connection to the computer. Also, no more spam emailed to me because my mom gets yet another virus...also, the printer works without the mysteriously uninstalling printer drivers now.
/sigh of happiness and contentment

Idea for Google

Why not set up a free service that allows websites to be notified as soon as a take down request is received? Have them provide an email address and send out an automated response that explains what has happened and includes the take down request.

Re: Idea for Google

Uh... from the blog post:

Of course, this is also a good reminder -- as they note in the Google blog post -- that if you run a website, you should absolutely sign up to use Google's Webmaster tools, which will quickly inform you when one of your URLs are targeted by such a takedown, allowing you to easily file a counternotice.

Re: Idea for Google

"Of course, this is also a good reminder -- as they note in the Google blog post -- that if you run a website, you should absolutely sign up to use Google's Webmaster tools, which will quickly inform you when one of your URLs are targeted by such a takedown, allowing you to easily file a counternotice."

Re: Re:

just waiting for the 'take down' request to go in. no way are the entertainment industries going to like people seeing how often they make 'requests'. shame governments dont take notice of the ok stats. makes the whole internet wild west littered with 'rogue websites' look a bit stupid, doesn't it!

Google be a good chap and set up a system, so that when a site gets blocked, you send out an email to those who have set up to keep tabs on that particular site

Should'nt be to difficult with your programming background, i mean, web addresses tend to be unique, so there's your constant right there, and the hard part, the database, you seem to already be working on......sooooo?

Now, obviously your listening, otherwise i'd just be some grandios qwack, who thinks every major corporation reads my comments, beacuase i mention you by name

Re:

Don't be silly. Of course they are not wasting that much time, they have some sort of automated software filling out these forms based on advanced algorithms like keywords or... well probably just keywords.

copy the information

I don't yet know how, but someone should write something that can copy the information Google is providing and store it in a database. Make it automatic (again, not sure how, webcrawler or ?) that way when Google is threatened for exposing dirty deeds done to sheep (the populous) by such corporations, we'll still have the info and can still spread it.

Semi Proof Against the Trolls

So most of the sites, even torrent ones, have pages less than 1% requested for removal. Isn't that semi related as an argument against the trolls who keep bragging (without proof or citation) that 95% of torrents are infringing? If it were really that large of a percent, wouldn't the takedowns against torrent sites have 95% (or some other number the trolls like to pull out of their bums) of the pages in the domain listed as takedown requested? I mean, c'mon, at least 10%, but not even a single percent for most.

Re: Re: Semi Proof Against the Trolls

although i'd love for it to be 1%, its probably slighly more, as you gotta take in the count for those sites that havent been taken down, and some have been up for years, which makes me think honey trap, and since theres no major news to confirm that, im either imagining, or its a long term honey trap.

Re: Re: Semi Proof Against the Trolls

The main reason they target TPB so much I believe is because of TPB's attitude about all of it. They are well within their own laws and they knew it. That was anyways until the RIAA made the Swedish courts bend and twist their laws into legals loops and had crony judges make up rules for those laws so that they could punish the owners. (

Re: Semi Proof Against the Trolls

I suspect the argument would be, given the numbers of takedown requests, that they would not accept that the other 99% were not infringing, just that they're swamped by the numbers ergo the need for further legislation etc etc etc.

The 1%

My dear Mike, you've still got so much to learn. Or you're just ignoring facts on purpose. Check the companies who are filing those complaints. It will be companies that can afford to do so (lots of lawyers, lots of money...)

Now do you really think it is 1% or less because all the other stuff is LEGAL????

Trust me, if the owners of all the other stolen content could afford it, they would do the same thing.

Re: The 1%

Apparently the IP industry thinks that a $35 fee is appropriate for people to pay to protest their innocence under the 6-strikes rule.

So, perhaps ever take-down notice should be accompanied by a $35 fee. If $35 is inconsequential to private individuals then surely it is not too much for big corporations to pay. Processing claims probably costs at least that much, so the search engines and other third parties still would not be making money on the fee.

Honestly, it does not seem fair to me that someone should have to pay to defend their copyright (the violator should pay if found guilty), but the IP industry has already set the standard for how the system works by requiring people to pay a non-refundable $35 fee to protect their innocence.

Re:

A small charge would not be unreasonable, but realistically these kind of takedowns have to stop.
The sheer volume shows that it is an impossible game to play and only the unreasoning think that infringing on peoples rights to free speech and due process should be struck out or severely curtailed in further futile attempts to prevent actions that no one has actually been able to demonstrate cause any problems for anyone.
Having ruffled feathers is not a problem.

Does google (still?) find and display links in searches that are in unpublished directories or only links that are published by the website?

[Condensed Background:]

The majority of servers are just computers running standard Linux or Windows or Unix with server software (basically software that responds to search and up/download requests from clients such as your browsers, keeps stats, and does various other things). The files are in standard directories (the word "folder" is the same thing as directory - it's just a metaphor for the technically illiterate majority) using one of several standard directory structures (ext3, ext4, FAT32, NTFS, etc.).

In the old days of internet file hunting (eek: 10 years ago!!), google (and the others) could be used to search for a directory listing, since those listings used standard strings (so searching for "index of" and "love" would show scads of directories of scads of sites (the indexes were called "dexes" by the cognoscenti and there were whole open forums teeming with postings of finds from searchers - I used to visit one daily) with a file with the word "love" in it. There is a no-search keyword or some such in HTML that websites were supposed to use and search engines were supposed to obey, but both sides often ignored it or weren't even aware of it

File hunters also used google (and others) with techniques like trying/guessing typical directory names such as "media", "mp3", "audio", etc....)

Of course, eventually the MAFIAA hired someone with a clue(yeah a guy they once hired by accident) and caught on and I believe google was shit on royally, but I don't know what happened.

The funny part is that the spammer/slime-merchants had caught on to that years before. So they put these strings (like "index of") into every one of their trllions of spam pages along with a trillion other typical search terms (they were usually in hidden text, so google would find it but you didn't see it in a standard browser display unless the spammer was a totally brain-dead lazy fucker (some are) and didn't hide it.

[end of Condensed Background]

A takedown should ONLY EVER apply to published links. If google is putting unpublished links into their results, then google should be sued into oblivion for privacy invasion by the site they (never should have) linked to.

Re: Re: Unpublished directories

"I'm reasonably certain that Google does not generate random URLs to crawl, and it never has. You have to be linked by an existing page before they'll crawl your page."

Wish that were the case, but having my address shown to me during a while search, WHILE logged off, isnt encouraging

So they at least have a way to track and identify you, and you dont even need to be logged on, unless of course this is just some funtion of an allowed cookie, and im just blowing this out of proportion, which is certainly a possibility

Re: Re: Re: Unpublished directories

So they at least have a way to track and identify you, and you dont even need to be logged on, unless of course this is just some funtion of an allowed cookie, and im just blowing this out of proportion, which is certainly a possibility

While that is a legitimate concern, I don't understand what that has to do with which pages their crawler indexes.

Re:

Correct me if I'm wrong, but most of the "unspecified" group appears to have been attached to company names in Cyrillic. I don't know about "unknown", but it might be a case of translation difficulties.

Request by law enforcement on google accounts
AND
requests for site takedowns
Right direction i guess

But, didnt know you could check how many requests by law enforcement made on google accounts, hell, i didnt even realise google where giving out our data, thats fucked up google, i dont care how you try to rationalize it, oh, im, pretty sure your being pressured somewhere, but its still fucked up

in future ill be looking out for companies whos policies specifically and contractually, protect a users right, WITHOUT FUCKING QUESTION.

Re:

However, if you look carefully at the data, Google also highlights the percentage of pages on those sites for which they've received takedowns, and the vast majority of them are well below 1%. In other words, no one has complained about well over 99% of the pages on these sites. It seems pretty drastic to suggest that these sites are obviously nothing but evil, when so many of their pages don't seem to receive any complaints at all.

So many of their pages don't seem to receive any complaints on Google. These numbers don't show how many notices the actual sites got. Notices are sent to the sites themselves far more often than they are sent to Google to remove search result listings.

fast, cheap, good: pick any two

The venerable aphorism from engineering and programming is:

"Fast, cheap and good: pick any two."

The content industry has decided that it must optimize on "fast" and "cheap" in its systems for taking content (and websites) off the network. The content industry can no longer afford "good" i.e. accuracy.

Maybe we should just republish and rebrand this list as "Companies that Most Hate the Internet". Originally I thought "Corporations With Endangered Business Models" but that might encourage the government in it's conservation efforts.

Re: How suspicious...

Yeah, there was an article about it. It disappeared entirely for a bit then came back. It is rather interesting that they would attempt to claim copyright on said post. Shows just how scared they were at the time. What's amusing is how many trolls there were during that period on this site. You couldn't go into a SOPA related article without seeing at least 10 of them. Of course what's even more amusing is how sure thing it was that SOPA was going to pass. For awhile immediately after things got very quiet around here. It's like they knew if they came back here right away we'd just spend the rest of the comments laughing at them and going "Sure thing, huh?"

UMG took down my video too, fair use be damned!

As I've just realized, UMG ordered a takedown of a 2 minute (!) video clip I'd uploaded for my blog to Youtube, claiming it had content owned by UMG. Said content was me playing excerpts from these 3 songs:

Queens Of The Stone Age: The Lost Art Of Keeping A Secret
Tool: 46 & 2
Ill Niņo: I Am Loco

barely audible in the background, demonstrating how sucky the display of my (back then pretty expensive) Panasonic car stereo was: dead slow, 30 chars max, some characters missing, some cut off after special chars.

Now, please watch it at Vimeo and tell me what kinda (financial) harm UMG could possibly suffer from this fair use clip, especially compared to the harm of yet again looking like complete jackasses for taking it down?